Venus In Retrograde
by Garmonbozia
Summary: River's been cheating.  Hopping into her own relative future.  Not a good idea, all that foreknowledge.  Who knows what you're going to find out.  Doctor Song gets a hell of a shock when she goes to check out her future husband.  One shot.


Sometimes, when she's bored, River cheats. Because she's more than aware that she gets bored so other times, when she's not in her cell and something fun seems to be happening that she doesn't have time to investigate, she writes it down for herself. A little date, a little set of co-ordinates. Normally with no notes even attached because heaven help her should the Doctor find out she's messing the timestreams about that way. It's not as if she does this all the time. Only when she's really very bored indeed.

Which only happens when he hasn't stopped in in a while.

So it's his own fault really.

If he was just a little more attentive, these things wouldn't happen.

But what the hell, c'est la vie, que sera sera and things are how they are right now at this specific moment in time. Yes, she's cheating. Peeking. Flipping through the diary for something that shouldn't be there yet. Margin notes and different coloured pens.

And there, on a page as yet untouched near the back of the book, is something truly, truly irresistible.

Very small so no one would notice, in urgent red block capitals –

'THIRTEENTH'

And the co-ordinates to get to it too.

Oh yes. The boredom could be gone at a simple sequence of keystrokes. And not just the boredom gone, but there could be _fun_. _Could_ be, if it wasn't for the moral quandary that Doctor Song now finds herself negotiating.

There is a day coming, very soon (don't ask how she knows. Certainly not because she cheated), when the Doctor will ask her to make him a promise. A promise never to cheat on him with his future selves. They are, he feels, not technically him yet, and so they count as 'others', for now. Utterly ridiculous, of course. River can't think why, in a million years, she'd ever agree to such a stupid clause. Of course they're him. How dare he stand there and lecture her about how, essentially, time is linear, when they both know that to be patently untrue.

And yet she knows that, come that very near hour, she agrees. Promises. Doesn't even have her fingers crossed when she says it.

Not that she cheated and was watching the whole scene from a cupboard. That's not what happened at all. Like I say, she doesn't cheat very often.

Anyway, it's ridiculous.

Anyway, it hasn't happened yet.

She gathers the scattered pieces of the manipulator, each unrecognizable as a part of the whole, from around her cell, and spends a patient half-hour putting it back together again, and wondering. Dreaming, hardly daring to dream, of what he might look like. She intends, you see, to very gently push certain ideal at him. Psychologically, you understand. Little scraps of perfection buried in his subconscious. And hopefully, _hopefully_, if all goes to plan, by the time he reaches his thirteenth incarnation, his mind will have taken the hint.

Of course, she's ready for the worst too. It would be irresponsible of her to walk into this with some naughty idealistic notion and just expect it to come true. No, she's ready for deformity and ageing and, god help us all, that ginger hair he has so longed for all these years. River is prepared for anything.

Or so she thinks.

Vortex manipulator all united again, she sets her destination, waves goodbye to her guard and presses the button.

Endless, horrible, stomach shaking moments later, she materializes at the Tardis door. Out in the woods somewhere, in a clearing, nothing else around for miles. Here she pauses a moment and takes advantage of the latest custom upgrade to her transporter; the little mirror inside the lid. Puffs up her hair at the back and teases it down on the top where the vortex mussed it up, checks her lipstick. Not that he ever notices these things but _again_, maybe by this stage he'll have learned.

She lives in hope, bless her heart, she always has.

Then knocks.

"Who is it?"

A woman's voice. Low and husky. What, do they have a housekeeper by this stage? Is she out of prison? Are they living together, finally? River's heart swells as she pushes the door open, sticks her head in.

"Only me."

There's the woman who spoke. Tall and fine as porcelain. So pale and with hair so dark she looks like a black and white film. Beautifully made up.

What the _hell_ is going on here?

But she smiles, wide and radiant, the moment she claps eyes on River. Leaning on the console rail she calls down, "River! Nice of you to stop in, finally. How are you?"

And it doesn't do to pour out one's addled mind and scared heart to a stranger, so she nods and says, "Yeah, fine. Is he about?"

"Who, your dad? Took Amy to the cinema, you just missed them."

"No, I mean… Sorry, can I just ask, who _are_ you?"

The smile drops for a moment, then comes back brighter than ever. The woman comes down the stairs, long rustling skirts sweeping behind her. The gauzy sleeves of the dress press back on the bare white of her arms underneath. Awfully low cut, that dress, awfully tight in the bodice. Might hardly be decent if it didn't look so impossibly expensive. River, momentarily, is distracted by the idea that she might have seen it before. The breathless smile, the full, parted lips, River takes a half-step back. "Heavens, Doctor Song," the woman smiles, "When _are_ you coming from?"

"Tell me who you are, first, then I'll decide what to tell you. I might just want to tell you to get the hell out of my husband's Tardis and try and be faster than my next bullet."

"I don't think that's going to happen, somehow. How are the children?"

"The _what_?"

"Oh, _way_ back! What was your Stormcage cell number?"

"Forty-six."

"Ah… Now you forgot a hundred years or more ago… You're cheating, aren't you? Skipping into your own relative future. Tut-tut… Naughty girl, whatever shall we do with you?"

And at that, River is just about finished with this. Not putting up with it anymore. She unholsters her weapon and presses it to this odd, forward woman's head. "Now you listen to me. I don't know _who_ you are or _what_ you're doing here, but I am looking for my husband."  
>"Wife."<br>"Well, yes, I am, that is rather what was implied."

"No, River, you're not listening to me."

For a moment, the silence is absolute. River's mind and expression turn perfectly, absolutely blank. Then, very slowly at first, reality registers. It all rages on her, overloads, and she begins to sway on the spot.

The Doctor slips her arm around River's waist and holds her up. Long, fine fingers with glossy red nails push hair out of her eyes. She watches them go by in utter horror, then reaches up and bats them off.

"Oh, darling, don't be like that."

River staggers backward, pointing, "Don't call me darling! Was this your idea of a joke? A regeneration is for life!"

The Doctor matches her path, step by high-heeled step around the base of the console. Keeping a respectful distance, but with a light, bemused smile, ready to break into laughter at any moment. "Not just for Christmas," she fills in. "Eventful old year, wasn't it? Oh, but then you haven't done it yet…"

"_How_ bloody eventful?"

The Doctor stops following. Stands still and hangs her head. Then tosses it up again, throwing glossy black curls back over her shoulders. "Listen, come up here and sit down, River, you don't look steady."

No, and doesn't feel steady either. Doesn't much feel like there's ground beneath her feet anymore. The Apparent _Doctor_ reaches one hand out, ready to help guide her up the steps. She refuses, lifts her head proudly and eyes the other woman as she climbs. The "Doctor" does her best for her, perfectly understanding of her reticence, and yet always on the cusp of laughing. Pulls a drawer River has never seen before from beneath the console, offers the bottle of gin and the bottle of tonic in either hand.

"Oh God, yes."

She sets herself to mixing the drinks, steering carefully clear of prolonged eye contact. So like him, at least, in that respect. "Look, I can only guess how far behind you are, and I know this looks odd to you. But River, this was your idea." River reels as though punched. The only part of her that remains steady is the hand reaching out for the glass. "Oh yeah. 'You have to try it at least once, sweetie. Last chance.' I was too busy thinking about my own mortality and you were… _moulding me_ to your own _wicked designs_… You never did fancy the last me…"

"Oh, what, and you're saying _you_-"  
>"I'm not saying a thing except things have been a lot better between us since I got…" She nods down at herself, "The Girls." River shudders, begs in a gasp for the Doctor to stop. "Sorry, love."<br>"No, actually, just completely stop."

She does. Perches herself on the edge of the console, long white legs crossed through the split in her skirts, sipping her drink. Refusing to look at those legs, River shuts her eyes, covers her face with her free hand. Nothing so very terrible about this. Not at the core of it. Not really.

Still, she can't exactly breathe properly. It's just all so unexpected, so emphatically the last idea she could ever have conceived.

And yet the absolute calm, the giggling, the empathy… How can she deny it? The resemblance is there. Not physically, oh _God_, not physically, but in other ways, ways that matter more.

"What's your star sign?" she demands, quite suddenly.

Without missing a beat, "Milky Way or Seventh System?"

The perfect answer. River groans. "When do I get you to give up hats?"

"Never, darling, but you do improve my tastes immeasurably."

"_Why were you talking about children_?"

"Oh… Spoilers? Anyway," she says, smoothing the front of her dress, "That's all over and done with now."

"Sonic something," River demands, desperate now, and then wishes, not even that she'd never spoken, but that she'd never had a tongue to begin with that even the concept of the words might never have occurred to her, as the old familiar sonic screwdriver is produced top first from the admittedly ample bosom of this so-called Doctor.

"Hm… what to sonic, what to sonic… Oh, you'll like this."

One quick blast, and down around the top of the console sinks a hoop of crystal drops, a chandelier giving back the glow of the time rotor. River is shocked to find herself nodding, "That _is_ nice."

"Should be, you picked the bloody thing."

It could be all the straight answers, or it could be the distinct lack of tonic in the gin, but River sinks into her chair a little more. Whether she wants to admit it or not, it's all adding up. She tries, Lord how she tries, to think of something else, something that would trip up anybody but him. Her… She could ask him… _her_ to take her somewhere, maybe, but what's the point? Could ask some question only he… should know the answer to, but she's so far behind, everything could have changed.

Everything.

No. Not everything.

River breathes deeply, necks the last of the drink until the ice cubes pile against her lips. Then rubs off that numbness. Could interfere with the readings. And these are the most terrifically important readings she's had to analyse in a long while.

"Fine then. Last test, then I'll believe you."

With a benevolent smile, with perfect understanding, "Of course, darling."

"Kiss me."

The face falls, like the smile dropped off the bottom and dragged the rest with it. Something confused and gormless and endearingly familiar about the way she swallows, even without the Adam's apple. "Pardon?"  
>"Kiss me."<br>"Listen, River, we don't have to do this right now. You can just slip off back to your own time and forget about this until you get here. I understand, it's alright."

"No, no," and she plants one hand on the console, either side of those folded legs. Removes one briefly to take the glass from the Doctor's hand and set it aside. "I insist."

"You promised me you wouldn't do this."

"That's the great thing about you being the last, though; your former selves never, ever need to know."

The Doctor sighs, tosses her head. "Why does it always have to come down to you _pouncing_ me?" Then puts her cool damp hand on River's cheek and guides her in. A moment's delicate eye contact, a tentative scrape of one pair of lips against another, and then the kiss. Intense, heartfelt… Brief.

Just long enough for River to reach in and remove the tiny clear earpiece from the woman's right ear, stand back and shout into it, loud as she can, "Enjoying yourself, sweetie?"

With a cry, the Doctor, the real one this time, staggers out of a room at the top of the stairs, throwing off the headset that just amplified her screaming right into his ears. He recovers almost immediately and points an accusatory finger at her. "Hussy! Brazen harlot!"

"Oh, no. No, my love," she says, smiling to keep herself from immediately murdering him there on the stairs, "Tonight is not on me." And the young lady, the pretender, still touching her lips, is sliding herself along the console, edging away until River reaches out and grabs hold of her wrist. "Hang about a minute, love." Then, to the real Doctor, "About a minute. That's how long you have to convince me not to strangle you with your own ridiculous tie. Now what was the point of all this?"

He swallows. And she was wrong, it _is_ better with the Adam's apple, and with that strangling tie, and the big wiggling ears. It exaggerates everything, makes it look that little bit more cartoonish. It demonstrates to her that he appreciates entirely the depth of trouble he's currently in.

He speaks appropriately quickly too. Appreciates that, with her, a minute means a minute.

"Three things, River," he begins, "Firstly, you love my tie, you always have, you always will, even when I'm not this me anymore, it'll be all, 'Ooh, Doctor, put the tie back on' and I will, because I'd do anything for you, especially when you have a gun in your hand, which, by the way, meant to ask you, would you mind awfully putting that down for just a second?"  
>"Yes."<br>"Yes you'll put it down or yes you'd mind awfully?"  
>It stays well trained on his centre chest. "The latter, sweetie. Sorry."<p>

"Oh well. Second thing, _you_ need to stop cheating. This is the third time this week. It was a trap, set by me, after the first two occasions on which I caught you cheating. River, I didn't do this just to get at you." Here he slows, momentarily, the back of his hand lifting up to stroke her face. For a moment, the muzzle of the gun, maybe, just slightly, wavers a little. "I did it because someday you're going to see something you don't like, or something that changes everything. I'm trying to _help_ you, darling. Foreknowledge can be so, so dangerous. We should know that more than any two people alive."

Typical. He knows he's in trouble so he trots out that time she nearly ended the world, how he baled them out of that, how she owes him forever and ever for that one. Bloody typical.

"Fine," she sighs. "One other question, though."

"Fire away, love, anything you want."  
>River steps out and points at the woman standing sheepishly behind her. "Why the hell is she wearing my dress?"<p>

"Well, I didn't know!" the woman cries, in her own defence. Not sounding nearly so Lauren Bacall this time. Much more Eastender than East Coast. "He just pointed me at a wardrobe, didn't he?"

"River, this is Cleo. Cleo got in a scrap with a Bishop a while ago and owed me a favour."

"Which I trust is completely repaid now, innit though?"

And because River is glaring, he nods without a word. For lack of any other recourse, he gives her the thumbs-up. When nothing happens then, River seethes, gently, into herself, and spins to the girl. Tears off her manipulator and claps it around Cleo's wrist. The Doctor can give her a lift and he won't question it if he knows what's good for him. She packs Cleo back off to the Gielgud Memorial Theatre of New London and turns back to her husband.

Husband, mind, not wife.

Spins, more than turns. Viciously. On her heel. And advances on him until he's backed right up to the railing.

"You had some _no-name_ _actress_ impersonate your future self to _teach me a lesson_?"

"Cleo actually does manage to get a bit of a reputation going in a couple of years, off-off-off Broadway-"

"Simple yes or no would do."  
>"Yes, I did, that is a thing that I…" He cuts himself off because he's about to laugh and knows, couldn't help but pick up, that it's a bad idea. "Well, I wanted to get Angelina Jolie, but you would have recognized her. Anyway… don't like owing that woman favours… She has… <em>odd tastes<em>."  
>"Stop talking now, my love."<p>

He does, and nods. Stands with his hands folded and his face towards his shoes, waiting to be slapped.

Rightly so. And so she should. She's well within her rights to do it. Teach him a lesson about teaching her lessons. River's perfectly capable of taking care of herself, thank you very much.

Instead, she reaches past him, takes his pretender's drink and tries to settle her nerves before he notices she's still shaking. "What was the third thing?"

"Pardon?"  
>"Three things, you said. Bowtie, and not cheating and what was the third thing going to be? If I hadn't yet decided not to shoot you at that point."<p>

"Ah yes. The third thing."

Oh no. He's got that look on his face. Nothing so special about the look itself. Just means he's proud of something or he's thought of something that leaves him mildly amused. The look in and of itself is entirely innocent. It's just that it's usually a two-minute warning for River, that very soon she's going to be very, very angry with him.

"You know how I'm always on at you about properly checking your temporal co-ordinates before you use a vortex manipulator?"  
>"Yes."<p>

"And you know how you never, _ever_ do?"

Shamelessly, "Yes." Like she's got _time_ when she's using a manipulator to stop and check timelines…

"You didn't do it this time either."

She sent the manipulator away with Cleo, so she goes to the console, checking the Tardis' own current position on the monitor. Mutters, under her breath, "The first of April…"

A tiny little voice at her ear, "Fooled you."

This time, without hesitation, she slaps him.


End file.
